I have a question about the future of metrics for hiring and promoting faculty in science. Academic journal articles have been our currency for a long time, but are under extreme & mounting pressure. Is any dept or field already using a better metric *for hiring and promoting faculty*?

Hurrah for data sharing in development science. Because prior studies shared data, we could do a higher-powered test of the effect of age than any one study alone. In this case, the youngest infants have just as strong expectations about saliva sharing as the older ones! #opendata

Brandon Woo@brandonwoo.bsky.social · last mo.

We pooled data from studies that have used this paradigm (our work; Ciftci, @jfkominsky.bsky.social, & Csibra, 2025). When an individual was in distress, infants and toddlers from across the wide age range (4 to 19 months of age) looked more to someone who had shared saliva with that individual.

New paper with Liz Spelke, @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that when 4- to 6-month-old infants observe two individuals share saliva, they infer that those individuals have a close relationship. Free access link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1niQg_Oow0...

What an incredibly moving and joy-filled 20-year reunion of Saxe-lab past and present. I feel so lucky to have these people be my scientific family.

You can use this R function to download all of the files associated with an OSF project. Improvements are coming in the next version to include registrations. Should we add a function to download all your public and private projects? osf_file_download(“abcde”) www.scienceverse.org/metacheck/

Check Research Outputs for Best Practices

A modular, extendable system for checking research outputs for best practices using text search, R code, and/or (optional) LLM queries.

scienceverse.org

Joe Bak-Coleman@jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

On the off chance you're relying on OSF to store your data; put copies of it somewhere safe ASAP. I like to think they've got the runway to keep storing things like they suggest, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this went dark on the internet. www.cos.io/osf-changes

Here is what i think the head-to-head comparison of ResearchBox vs Zenodo look like as OSF replacements. If I am missing an important attribute, let me know, will update accordingly.

Many of you will have seen the recent post about changes at OSF. If you'd like to learn more about how to use other services (particularly Zenodo) to share data and code, see my book chapter on resource sharing. bettercode-book.org/book-sharing...

When we started scanning human infants 13 years ago, it seemed likely that functional responses in infant cortex would be qualitatively different from adults. Instead we keep finding similarities between infants and adults. Even for scene perception, despite the slow development of navigation.

Freddy Kamps@fkamps.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New paper! We found basic scene selectivity arises across the scene network early in infancy (i.e., by ~3.5 months old), prior to independent navigation experience www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

One current debate about infants vs AI: how much visual experience do they each need to learn to see? Don’t miss the neat relevant evidence and calculation in @fkamps.bsky.social 's paper, and explained in 🧵 ⤵️.

Freddy Kamps@fkamps.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New paper! We found basic scene selectivity arises across the scene network early in infancy (i.e., by ~3.5 months old), prior to independent navigation experience www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New paper! We found basic scene selectivity arises across the scene network early in infancy (i.e., by ~3.5 months old), prior to independent navigation experience www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The cortical scene processing network emerges in infancy, prior to independent navigation experience | PNAS

Sighted people rely on vision to recognize and navigate the local environment. By adulthood, human cortex contains at least three regions that resp...

pnas.org

New paper with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social "Expectations of reciprocal generosity are specific to equal relationships," in @openmindjournal.bsky.social. Thread below! Article: doi.org/10.1162/opmi... MIT News: news.mit.edu/2026/would-y...

Would you return a favor? Scientists say it depends on the relationship

People generally only engage in reciprocal generosity with others of equal or unknown status, MIT researchers experimentally demonstrated. During repeated interactions between people of different soci...

news.mit.edu

The OMB has proposed rules that would, among other things, have political appointees override peer review and allow sudden grant termination. This morning I wrote a comment on this proposal in my own words. It only took a few minutes. You can do the same: www.regulations.gov/document/OMB...

I'm staying at my friend's house. Will my friend expect to stay at my house, next time? What if I said, I'm staying at my parent's friend's house. Will my parent's friend expect to stay at my house next time? How relationships change expectations: see🧵on new paper by @aliciamchen.bsky.social

Alicia Chen@aliciamchen.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social "Expectations of reciprocal generosity are specific to equal relationships," in @openmindjournal.bsky.social. Thread below! Article: doi.org/10.1162/opmi... MIT News: news.mit.edu/2026/would-y...

A first glimpse of the monosynaptic connectivity to TPJ in humans!

Rui Xu@rui-xu.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Across sites, we drew an initial sketch of inter-fROI connectivity diagram (more in the paper). Language fROIs connect with speech and TOM fROIs, which all connect, to some degree, with FFA, but not neighboring PPA. MD fROIs form a tight clique while sampling diversely. 11/n

So cool! New evidence of a mono-synaptic pathway from FFA to TPJ in human cortex from @rui-xu.bsky.social , @nancykanwisher.bsky.social and team. They stimulated a site in FFA, and evoked activity in (independently functionally localized) TPJ.

Rui Xu@rui-xu.bsky.social · 5mo ago

From general principles to specific fROIs. Stimulating two FFA sites revealed direct connections to many other face regions (OFA/fSTS/PFC, …), lower-level object/place areas (LOC/OPA), temporal language areas, and TPJ (social cognition; a face-to-social-cognition pathway). 10/n

Neuroscientists interested in rigor, methodology, and open practices, check out this job opportunity to work on a COS-MIT collaboration to improve the research culture in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at MIT. careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

Neuroscience Research Methodologist

MIT - Neuroscience Research Methodologist - Cambridge MA 02139

careers.peopleclick.com

Congratulations to @olaozpal.bsky.social & big team on new paper: large sample of children reveals the early origins of left-lateralization in language processing. Nice profile in MIT news: news.mit.edu/2026/languag...

Language development in the brain

The brain’s capacity to use and understand language expands rapidly in the first years of life. But by age 4, language processing is already handled by the left side of the brain, as in adults, accord...

news.mit.edu

📢PhD job alert! A exciting PhD project that involves using MEG and biophysical modelling to try to predict effects of a glutamatergic treatment for psychosis... plus you can develop your own side project. Join our great team! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

ucl.ac.uk

Job posting! MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences are hiring a Neuroscience Research Methodologist - responsible for open science practices and data management across all the areas of the department. See 🧵for link and details.

So impressed by the MIT graduate student council's resolution on open scholarship. If you're a graduate student and want a voice in the future of science scholarship, this is an example. See profile by the MIT Libraries: libraries.mit.edu/news/reshapi...

Reshaping Scholarly Communications | News

In March 2026, MIT’s Graduate Student Council (GSC) passed a Resolution on Scientific Publishing and MIT Libraries, a wide-ranging document that calls upon the MIT community, as well as federal fundin...

libraries.mit.edu

A now annual Mother's Day tradition: celebrating this image and the poignant words of @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social about the complexity of identity and culture — and to the experience of motherhood. Thank you for it, Rebecca. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

I have now read this piece and it is very good. Massive respect for @merenbey.bsky.social and Iva for their persistence and documenting this torturous process. Highly recommended reading for anyone who cares about reproducibility in science.

A. Murat Eren (Meren)@merenbey.bsky.social · 6mo ago

How every layer of science's "self-correcting machinery" failed when Iva Veseli and I simply wanted to reproduce the findings of a high-profile study on gut microbiome and autism: merenlab.org/2026/04/15/u...

Teach neuroscience to undergraduates? Check out our "Implementing Open Neuroscience Teaching Tools" workshop! Join us on July 19 at North Central College to get hands-on practice with inquiry-based activities using real #OpenScience resources. 🔗 https://bit.ly/46A5j15 🧠📈 #iteachbio

Today I taught science communication, and miscommunication, to graduate students at MIT. In the process I stumbled on this great blog post from 2019 about the misinformation related to my Mother and Child Image. Thanks! whoever wrote this. www.feeduk.org/blog/mri-ima...

Sunday scrolling: the MRI image that misled many mums — feed

It all begins with an idea.

feeduk.org

Love this framing for open science from @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social: to discover the truth, you must be open to scrutiny from all quarters. Celebrating 25 years of @mitocw.bsky.social

Tonight at 7pm: Nancy Kanwisher will be on On Point!! Talking about the brain. @nancykanwisher.bsky.social @npr.org

Awake infant fMRI offers a rare window into early brain and cognitive development. In a new paper out now in Infancy, we leverage data from hundreds of infant scans from the Saxe and Turk-Browne Labs to reveal what factors drive scanning success — and how future studies can maximize data retention!

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Congratulations to @lillianbehm.bsky.social, Nick Turk-Browne, and a huge team for putting together this paper (out today) on lessons from a decade of attempts to study awake infants with fMRI: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

If you are at MIT today come to the Open Data prize celebration at 3pm in the Nexus! libraries.mit.edu/opendata/ope...

MIT Prize for Open Data | Open Data @ MIT

To highlight the value of open data at MIT, and to encourage the next generation of researchers, the MIT School of Science and the MIT Libraries present the MIT Prize for Open Data. Congratulations to...

libraries.mit.edu

My sister @shoshannasaxe.bsky.social In this podcast, just rocks. So proud. www.podbean.com/ep/pb-bqngw-...